The Truth About the Russian Boy
By Jean Nelson Erichsen
We scratch our heads in puzzlement over Associated Press articles focused on. Artyom Savelyev, seven years old, adopted in Russia by Torry Hansen and renamed Justin Hansen. He lived with her for seven months before she sent him back to Russia as an unaccompanied minor with a letter of complaint stating she no longer wished to parent him. Extensive (and erroneous) media coverage did not explain why this child was allowed to travel without the protection of a responsible party. Another head scratch.
We do know this: Torry Hansen lived in Tennessee but adopted through an agency in Washington. A local social worker visited Ms. Hansen two or three times. Worker ran criminal background checks and wrote a report called a home study to satisfy the minimum child-placing standards of Tennessee and Washington. Then Ms. Hansen dutifully filed her home study with the local Citizenship and Naturalization Service (CIS). This would assure her prospective child of a US visa. Russia required Hansen to visit her child in Partizansk,. Russia, twice before she agreed to adopt Artyom. Then mother and son traveled to Moscow, where the American Consulate issued an IR-3 visa which qualified Justin, when he deplaned in the USA, American citizenship.
We don’t know if Hansen was required to participate in international adoptive parent training. If she had, she would have known that most children are institutionalized to protect them from abusive and neglectful families. She would have known that her child may not have been able to articulate his traumas to the authorities. They didn’t lie to her. They simply didn’t know. Harking back to Colombia, when my husband and I visited an orphanage and asked about the background of a certain boy available for adoption, the orphanage director said, “We don’t know. He’ll tell you when he gets to know you better and he can express himself in English.” Further, had Ms. Hansen been cognizant of child development, she may not have frustrated her son from the get-go by calling him Justin after he had answered to Artyom for seven years.
In Russia, Pavel Astaknov, Children’s Rights Commissioner, complained that there is no treaty to protect Russian children abroad. During a press conference today, it was rumored that Foreign Ministry spokesperson Andrei Nesterenko announced a suspension of adoptions to the United States until a bilateral agreement on intercountry adoption is formalized with the United States.
This is the crux of the US-Russian adoption problem. Unlike sixty other countries, Russia did not sign The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. If Russia had done so, their adoptable children would have benefited by the highest quality and standards demanded by The Hague of social workers, home studies, parent training, child referrals, child placements, and post- placement supervision. While The Hague cannot guarantee the success of an adoption, it vastly improves the odds. China was the first to sign the treaty; the United States was the last, after a fourteen-year wrangle. The probability of our country working out a separate treaty with Russia is nil.
I have always felt that Russia has their process backward. It emphasizes and demands years of studies of the family after adoption, rather than thorough preparation and studies of the family prior to the adoption. The best example is the social worker’s visit to the Hansens four months after Justin’s arrival. No problems were noted. Yet three months later, Justin was returned to Russia.
In my role at Los Niños International Adoption Center, I supervised the placement of 3,000 children. I had to replace six of them. When an adoptive family told me they were not unable to love their new child, or that the child did not love them, I was able to find more tolerant families. The couples met with me to work out the steps of the relinquishment and the custody transfer. The new families knocked themselves out to find the best pediatric physicians and therapists. Close supervision of these new families proved that the children were indeed capable of adjusting and bonding. But two of the families told me that rather than wait for me to find a suitable home, they had signed their child over to the state welfare system. Fortunately, the children received therapy and eventually were photo-listed in the state adoption exchange. One couple keeps in touch with me long after anyone else would have given up. They continue to seek therapy for two children they adopted. Psychologists term their behavior “reaction attachment disorder” (RAD). Three years of intensive treatment for bizarre behavior caused by previously unexpressed sexual abuse resulted in a turnaround for the older child and hope for a similar outcome for the younger. Yet Hansen ignored these options and attempted to take the easy way out.
According to the National Council on Adoption, the majority of 50,000 Russian children adopted by Americans since the early 1970s are living peaceful, happy lives. Unfortunately, a few unsuitable parents have spoiled the good reputations of the rest by maiming, molesting, or killing thirteen Russian children. Citizens of Western European countries also adopt from Russia but do not have such a deplorable record.
What will happen to the “Russian boy”? Fortunately for him, Russia considers Justin a dual citizen. But as those of us who have dealt with Russian adoption bureaucracies know, they are sticklers for details in policies and procedures. The media now tells us that several Russian couples offered to adopt him. Yet Justin cannot be adopted. Not until Hansen legally relinquishes him. Will she sign a power of attorney, along with a relinquishment, in Tennessee? Will it suffice?
As an author, I despair over the lack of foresight and judgment by all of the parties involved. My book, How to Adopt Internationally, is considered the bible of international adoption. Had Hansen read it, she may have adjusted her concept of the hale and hearty child of her dreams and helped heal the sorrowful child of an institution.
Like the rest of you, I wonder how Justin is faring. I wonder if the Department of Health and Education (the Russian child-placing entity) is tending to Justin’s emotional needs. I wonder if the department sent him back to his familiar territory in Partizansk. Most of all, I wonder how long he will be in limbo. When the maelstrom is over and Justin has a new home, I hope he merely scratches his head at the memory of his first adoption--a bad trip with a grumpy tour guide.
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May 13, 1943: German Afrika Korps surrender to the Allies, and are shipped off to POW camps in Africa, Europe, and America. “My greatest fear was not of our guards, but of Nazis who controlled the camps internally,” says Heinrich (Heino) Erichsen, an 18-year-old German private at the time. He survives sixteen camps, including those in Hearne, TX, and Ft. Knox, KY.
